Traditionally, the Patriots have always been pretty good when it comes to staying on message. From coach Bill Belichick on down, they’ll hammer home a couple of consistent points every week.

This week’s motto? There’s more to the Broncos than Tim Tebow.

The circus atmosphere around the Broncos quarterback continues to grow larger and larger with each passing week and each come-from-behind win he and Denver record. However, the Patriots have already started laying down this week’s mission statement: if you think the Broncos’ recent run of success is solely the result of Tebow’s magic, you’re missing the bigger picture.

“I think they have a good football team. They have a lot of good players -- it’s certainly not a one-man team,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “They’re good on defense, they’re good in the kicking game and they run the ball on offense well, they have a well balanced attack.

“Obviously, they’ve played great when they’ve needed to play well in the fourth quarter, whether it’s kicking 60-yard field goals or driving the length of the field for a touchdown or making a defensive stop or whatever it is. That’s really the mark of a team, is to play well in critical situations and win games and Coach [John] Fox has them doing that. I think that speaks to everybody.”

“Everybody tries to make it just ‘Tebow Time’ -- it’s their team,” linebacker Dane Fletcher said. “Just like (Sunday) was a good win for them. Their defense stepped up (and their) kicker had a couple of good kicks. I’m not blowing it out of perspective and saying it’s one guy, because it’s not. It’s the team.

“You got to give credit to how well the team is doing, as opposed to one guy. Because they’re all stepping up. When you look into this next week’s game, you got to look into them as a whole, special teams, offense and defense.”

There’s truth to their statements: On offense, the Broncos average 156.2 yards per game on the ground (the best average in the league), thanks in large part to the work of Tebow (94 carries, 517 yards, 5.5 yards per carry), Willis McGahee (199 carries, 920 yards, 4.6 yards per carry) and Lance Ball (72 carries, 302 yards, 4.2 yards per carry average). A commitment to the running game has been able to lift the Denver offense, even if Tebow has struggled to throw the football with consistency.

“They have a lot of confidence in it,” Belichick said of Denver’s dependence on the running game. “They call them, they don’t get discouraged with it, they hang with it. They try to get it worked out if a play is not going well. They hit you on a lot of different points of attack, different scheme runs. Of course the quarterback has put up quite a few yards himself. Also their option plays, the option, dive option program, that type of thing. There’s a lot of different ways they get that rushing yardage in bursts.”

With their pass defense struggling, the Patriots would usually welcome the idea of facing a run-first offense, especially given the fact that New England’s run defense has been pretty consistent all season (the Patriots allow an average of 107.3 rushing yards per game, 13th in the league).

But the Broncos run-heavy attack is unique in today’s pass-first NFL, and does present some unique challenge for the New England defense. Belichick said Tuesday they might be forced to change up their scout team quarterback this week because of Tebow’s unique skill set, while other elements of their running game (which has been described as a modified option offense) have some elements of the Wildcat, which AFC East rival Miami introduced a few years ago.

“They really test your defense all the way across the board,” Belichick said. “From the pass rush, contain the quarterback standpoint, to playing the normal run-block type of plays to their kind of specialty plays, element of Wildcat, quarterback scrambling ... things like that. They get you on a lot of different levels.”

Then, there’s the Denver defense, which will present another challenge when it comes to protecting quarterback Tom Brady. Rookie Von Miller (11.5 sacks) and Elvis Dumervil (7.5 sacks in the last six games) are one of the best pass rushing duos in the league, and are two of the primary reasons that the Broncos are middle of the pack (16th in the NFL) in pass defense, allowing 232.9 passing yards per game.

Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien said Tuesday that Denver has a “fast defense,” one that will take some getting used to, and much of their success hinges on Miller and Dumervil’s ability to get to the quarterback.

“We’re going to have to do a good job, especially early in the game of getting used to the speed of the game as it relates definitely to those two guys and then the rest of the defense too,” O’Brien said of Miller and Dumervil, who have a combined 19 sacks this season. “It’s a real challenge, especially on the road with the crowd noise and all those different things that will go into the game plan.”